Ford dealer booking time........RANT !

[Mowdit]

One of the reasons the major fast food chains became so successful in the 70's and 80's was because you could go to any of their outlets and get exactly the same service and product each and every time

Why are ford dealers so vastly different to each other

Took my 2017 Wildtrak WORK VEHICLE to a nearby dealer on 3/6/20, after spending 10 min trying to get the key out of the ignition or to get it to start again

When it finally started I went straight to the dealership, they couldn't get the key out or get it to start agin either

First available booking 15/6/20

Am sure it's a Friday build !

Second ignition failure, egr cooler replaced but still drinking 1lt of coolant a week (and compression locks on start if it's sat for 24 hours..........)

No loan vehicle, no lift home, but leave it and if we have some time in the next two weeks we will try to look at it........

Well I can't even FN start it, so yeah will leave it, being self employed is great, cancelled all jobs for Thurs and Friday, start praying
It's still under warranty Henry !
FFS Ford Aus !

[MercuryT]

I'm guessing no other dealer within distance?

I would be very unhappy also.

Probably same inconsistency with most brands and dealerships I'm sure, not just a Ford issue.

[sixman]

Ford dealer services seem to have gone to very limited spots for warranty work. I think its all of them now

[Blue Dog]

You neglected to name the dealership.
Why is that?

[MustangStevo63]

get hold of ford head office

[Pis-ton broke]

where are you at? will it crank?

[11ford11]

Did you talk to the service manager or the dealer principal or just the service advisor
Contact Ford head office as mentioned
Start threatening with legal action or current affair or possibly a replacement vehicle if this one is not fit for purpose.
Seek legal advice from fair trading -mtaa your insurance company - solicitor etc.
tell them you will be requiring a hire vehicle if it is not fixed as it is your business vehicle
Start calling the service manager at least twice a day for a report on the progress
I would be more worried about the compression lock...... leaking head gasket- leaking injector - which could see your vehicle there for a while .

If you don’t shout they won’t listen!

[p250f6]

Youy shouldn't have to shout, but these days it's the only language they seem to understand. Pity. They all do it. I have a pretty good relationship with my dealer, (I should have, I maintain 4 cars there......), but I've still run into the inconsistencies.

[Bossxr8]

Contact head office. They have a program running for people using Rangers as work vehicles, to get warranty concerns pushed through.

Dealers deserve a head office whipping from time to time.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Contact head office. They have a program running for people using Rangers as work vehicles, to get warranty concerns pushed through.

Dealers deserve a head office whipping from time to time.

The last time I dealt with Ford customer service with a complaint about the dealership they referred me back to the dealership.....go figure!

Some dealerships are good other are just ****.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Officemanager

The last time I dealt with Ford customer service with a complaint about the dealership they referred me back to the dealership.....go figure!

Some dealerships are good other are just ****.

Yep, pays to hunt around to find the best dealer. If you have that luxury.

That's the problem of dealers being independent franchises though, and not company controlled. It makes it harder to whip the crap ones into line.

It is baffling though. Surely the dealer principal knows poor service is most likely going to result in that customer never returning. Which costs him sales/servicing money in future.

[Mowdit]

Originally Posted by Blue Dog

You neglected to name the dealership.
Why is that?

Because it is still at that dealership, and it'd be unfair to name them only to find that they do fit it in or at least get tbe ignition fixed so I can drive it some time prior to the 15/6 .

[Blue Dog]

Originally Posted by Mowdit

Because it is still at that dealership, and it'd be unfair to name them only to find that they do fit it in or at least get tbe ignition fixed so I can drive it some time prior to the 15/6 .

Good luck!

[lra]

Originally Posted by p250f6

Youy shouldn't have to shout, but these days it's the only language they seem to understand. Pity. .

As much as I hate doing it, sometimes you just have to be obnoxious or rude before people notice you are even there ……………. and that is just not aimed at Ford dealers. I am tired of being the invisible man.

[CyberWasp]

The biggest way a company can distinguish itself from the opposition in the consumer world and build a solid reputation, is the way they handle things with warranty claims and when things go wrong.

[mondeomatureguy]

Gday Guys,
I read in this mornings paper in the car section 5/6/2020 that a guy took his XR6 for a service at a ford dealer. He was told "his brake master cylinder was leaking and although eight months out of warranty the dealer had gone to Ford and asked for a good will repair".

He was told "Ford would not cover the costs but the dealer would pay for parts if the customer paid $700 for the labour".
The customer said "yes" but he also contacted Ford directly and discovered the "goodwill from the Dealership was in fact funded by Ford.

[RE-Genesis]

So is this a common problem?...Ford dealers not Ford Rangers. Just wish for the good old days of Great customer service.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by RE-Genesis

So is this a common problem?...Ford dealers not Ford Rangers. Just wish for the good old days of Great customer service.

No not common now. Ford have worked very hard to improve their customer service. And it has worked, cause they are currently no 2 in the customer service ratings behind mazda. But there is always the odd clown show dealership ruining it.

[MustangStevo63]

My Mustang was a few months out of warranty , Air con failure - quoted $1500+ to fix , i mentioned about the KNOWN problem with the Mustang Air cond , my guy said i'll chase Ford Head Office for you , got answer same day - WE (Ford H.O) WILL FIX FREE OF CHARGE !!
Big shout out to QFord Springwood and Ford head office

[cobramania]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

No not common now. Ford have worked very hard to improve their customer service. And it has worked, cause they are currently no 2 in the customer service ratings behind mazda. But there is always the odd clown show dealership ruining it.

Reading that's good, but I'm still reluctant to go back to my local Ford dealer who I stopped going to for purchase & service back in 2005, I get my cars from & serviced by a dealer near work about 130k's from home now.

I took my nieces i30 to the local Hyundai dealer (funnily enough who also own the local Ford dealership I no longer visit), the other day for some recall repairs & thought I'd get it serviced also.

She drove it home & tried washing the windscreen, but no water in the reservoir (wasn't any before it went in for the service), got home & told me, we looked on the invoice, they had checked the washer operation, & charged for windscreen washer additive.
Don't know how they checked the washer operation with no water & put in an additive (or did they?), without filling the reservoir with water, they also checked the A/C operation (which doesn't work), but passed it as working.

If they do this at the Hyundai dealership, I'm sure they'll still be doing similar at the Ford dealership as well.

As you can see it's not just Ford, but I also don't believe Ford have whipped the dealers into line.

[mad2]

Originally Posted by cobramania

Reading that's good, but I'm still reluctant to go back to my local Ford dealer who I stopped going to for purchase & service back in 2005, I get my cars from & serviced by a dealer near work about 130k's from home now.

I took my nieces i30 to the local Hyundai dealer (funnily enough who also own the local Ford dealership I no longer visit), the other day for some recall repairs & thought I'd get it serviced also.

She drove it home & tried washing the windscreen, but no water in the reservoir (wasn't any before it went in for the service), got home & told me, we looked on the invoice, they had checked the washer operation, & charged for windscreen washer additive.
Don't know how they checked the washer operation with no water & put in an additive (or did they?), without filling the reservoir with water, they also checked the A/C operation (which doesn't work), but passed it as working.

If they do this at the Hyundai dealership, I'm sure they'll still be doing similar at the Ford dealership as well.

As you can see it's not just Ford, but I also don't believe Ford have whipped the dealers into line.

just crap

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by cobramania

Reading that's good, but I'm still reluctant to go back to my local Ford dealer who I stopped going to for purchase & service back in 2005, I get my cars from & serviced by a dealer near work about 130k's from home now.

I took my nieces i30 to the local Hyundai dealer (funnily enough who also own the local Ford dealership I no longer visit), the other day for some recall repairs & thought I'd get it serviced also.

She drove it home & tried washing the windscreen, but no water in the reservoir (wasn't any before it went in for the service), got home & told me, we looked on the invoice, they had checked the washer operation, & charged for windscreen washer additive.
Don't know how they checked the washer operation with no water & put in an additive (or did they?), without filling the reservoir with water, they also checked the A/C operation (which doesn't work), but passed it as working.

If they do this at the Hyundai dealership, I'm sure they'll still be doing similar at the Ford dealership as well.

As you can see it's not just Ford, but I also don't believe Ford have whipped the dealers into line.

Yet you haven’t been there in 15 years, so how would you know?

But that is terrible service. Did she go back and complain? Or let them get away with it?

[Schtoo]

It's not a 'dealer' thing as much as it's an 'Australia' thing.



We've bought 2 new cars in the past 10 years. A Mazda and a Nissan. A used car, a Mitsubishi.



The Mazda got a new sump gasket because it was weeping and a new power steering servo because, I dunno? These are things I didn't know about, and they were corrected by the dealer over and above the independent car seller we used. When the warranty expired, the car was perfectly serviceable for the remaining time it was owned by the family (went to mum-in-law) but the warranty was covered just fine.


The Nissan got new tailgate struts as a general recall, even though ours were 'fine' but they did get pushed back to the next service in favour of those who had dodgy ones. We also got a free inspection because the factory screwed it up (about $1000 worth) and anything found out of spec corrected. There was also a very weird rear brake issue where one of the discs was soft/hard and had an odd spot in it that caused a vibration under braking. Hard to find, but they didn't haggle or suggest it was something we'd done, both rear discs and pads (and all the fluid) was replaced, a sincere apology for the trouble and a comment from the ratchet monkey that they'd never seen it in 20 years of servicing. Each service they'd collect the car, leave a loaner and bring our car back again.



The Mitsubishi, Takata recall. They sent a letter, we booked the car and they changed it out in an hour. No problem. They sent out another letter a few months later to check it and to replace the blinker grease*. Again, booked it in and the work got done in an hour. No fuss, thanks for letting us fix our product.


*An actual thing. Really. It was the indicator switch, and the original grease would change over time and cause the switch to fail. Check the switch, change it if needed or just re-grease it.



The difference I'd put forth is that the Mazda was 'fixed' within 100km of the factory it was built it. The Nissan was 300km away and the Mitsubishi was 50km away, and we bought it from the same postcode the factory was in, and it'd spent much of it's life as a dealer loaner being bought back from the original buyer. Also explained a lot of the problems the Mitsu had, lots of folks driving it, degradation happened without a reference to judge it by.



As in, we bought them all while in Japan. I'm not going to start saying Japanese service is the be all and end all as the top worst service I've ever seen was in Japan too, but when it comes to cars dealers, frikkin awesome. They just fix things, as soon as it's a concern and even before it's a concern.



Except Honda. Who were very 'meh'. And Toyota, who were quite ambivalent about the foreigner asking about new cars.



We bought the Nissan back with us, it's still got stuff on it the newest model here doesn't yet have. Unfortunately it'll be time to move it on kinda soon I think, but I really don't know what to replace it with. I have a feeling stepping into a Hyundai might be asking for trouble of a familial nature...


(But there's no problem buying Australian. If only they could still be bought new. :( )


Stu.

[Mowdit]

Originally Posted by cobramania

took my nieces i30 to the local Hyundai dealer (funnily enough who also own the local Ford dealership I no longer visit), the other day for some recall repairs & thought I'd get it serviced also.

She drove it home & tried washing the windscreen, but no water in the reservoir (wasn't any before it went in for the service), got home & told me, we looked on the invoice, they had checked the washer operation, & charged for windscreen washer additive.
Don't know how they checked the washer operation with no water & put in an additive (or did they?), without filling the reservoir with water, they also checked the A/C operation (which doesn't work), but passed it as working.

If they do this at the Hyundai dealership, I'm sure they'll still be doing similar at the Ford dealership as well.

As you can see it's not just Ford, but I also don't believe Ford have whipped the dealers into line.

I specifically asked Ford NOT to add washer fluid (due to using a brand to help keep the rain off) and filled the reservoir to the brim, they still added and charged for it, and It now looks like a milkshake of foam across my windscreen

Agree with schtoo, it's an australia thing, do the bare minimum but just enough to keep the customer coming back, all while charging premium rate for a first year to drain and fill the oil

When I had the XR5 timing belt done I later found bolts missing and the abs wire from the stub axle to the body around the wrong side of the strut threatening to tear itself off had I of turned full left lock, yet I still persisted with that dealership because they took ownership of the issue........

[Schtoo]

Originally Posted by Mowdit

Agree with schtoo, it's an australia thing, do the bare minimum but just enough to keep the customer coming back, all while charging premium rate for a first year to drain and fill the oil

Actually, I'll just throw in this additional tid-bit.


Never EVER had the car come back from dealer service without it looking like it was professionally detailed, inside and out.



Hard to get used to the mechanic just 'fixing the car' here. I've got a good mechanic to do the servicing, but he don't clean nuttin'.


If that's not bad enough, I left an envelope in the glovebox of the Mazda with $500. Had been sitting in there for months, and the service folks must have seen it but never touched it because it was under the service books. Mum-in-law found it after we gave her the car.



At another time, I had my old Hilux (here) in somewhere and the ashtray went missing. A few bucks in it, but the annoying bit was the empty hole in the dashboard. Never turned up.



Stu.

[MercuryT]

I last had my car serviced down here in Tas.

Went to an Independant (Coopers) who charged $320 to say they had no idea what was wrong, just that they agreed something is wrong.

Brilliant.......

[bb_zetec]

May I add my experiences with Ford Dealers.

Dealers I dealt with in Sydney were pretty arrogant to say the least...this was back about 10 years ago mind you.

We bought a 2009 LV Focus Zetec ex Ford Company vehicle from said dealer with 1 year of factory warranty remaining.

Numerous issues cropped up with it including BCM failure and they diddnt really want a bar of it until we got the Ford CRC involved.

A call from the dealer principal later and the car was brought back and "suddenly" the BCM was indeed deemed faulty by them and replaced along with a few other things...they never got to the bottom of some other issues we had with it so we gave up and traded it in on a new Suzuki...which we still have that is close to 10 years old now still going strong.

The country dealers I have dealt with are very helpful, including up here in North Qld. Ive had my XR6 ute there a few times for bits and pieces and ordered spare parts and the have been very accommodating...a few times ive even spoken to the Mechanic that worked on the car. Not once did I get the familiar phrase "oh they all do that...or that's normal" from the country dealers.

I guess some dealers value their customers and some don't...there is an old saying "treat a customer fair and you will make more money over the course of time...treat them badly and they will never come back and take their money with them!"

[Mowdit]

Hi team,
Ended up picking the vehicle up from tbe dealership on Tuesday morning, it hadn't been touched.
Dealership explained that they we're short staffed, had I of know that I'd never have left it.

Ford Aus customer service got back to me and explained that due to Covid-19 many dealerships were running half of their staff (week on/week off)......
Of the 3 dealerships I approached they all had a two week lead time, even for break down issue's like this.
Well one would think that you would increase your service hours to cover the shortfall in covering demand ?
They are talking about organizing a loan vehicle.

After much frustration I got the key to turn and start it, left it running all day, just used the spare key to lock it, hope it starts again this morning.

Thanks for the feedback
Will update the final outcome soon

[kaniSS]

That's what you get for buying a bloody Ford.

[Mowdit]

Originally Posted by kaniSS

That's what you get for buying a bloody Ford.

What else do you buy then ?
I looked at the Hilux SR5 yesterday, it doesn't even have front or rear parking sensors !
You wouldn't go near a Triton, even if they were giving them away !
Isuzu, dare I say holden, Nissan or Mercede's ?????
Poor choices all around really !
It's that bad I'm even looking at a Hyundai I-Load, great warranty and great service